John DeFore

As in Schechter's previous movies, an unusually strong cast is key to making this touchy material work, with supporting players Lynn Cohen and Richard Schiff especially crucial.

Gourmel's film never stops identifying with the teen; that unshowy compassion will win some viewers over to a debut feature whose pulse rate never rises to the level its plot would seem to demand.

The film (which isn't a good place to start, for those new to Up) is far from a downer; it suggests that the next installment (and hopefully a couple after that) will have the feel of warm, sometimes bittersweet family reunions.

Though viewers who follow the subject in print won't learn a whole lot they don't already know here — and, given technology's pace, it may be irrelevant in a year — the documentary gathers news in a useful way, prompting discussions about what variety of a computer-guided world we'd like to live in

Age Out stands beyond the shadow cast by these artists; it is its own strong film and, whatever flaws it might have, deserves a much more visible release than it is getting.

Before it turns intense, the film gently captures the flavor of life in a place where locals play a part in their own law enforcement and it takes a bit of walking even to get to a road and hitchhike.

A look at the infamous paper that emphasizes color over critique, it's a blazingly paced film that entertains and informs, even if many viewers who value journalism will groan as they watch.

Buoyed by enjoyable performances by character actors like Paul Ben-Victor, the picture is slight but likeable, especially for fans of its younger leads.

Set in the tense hours between a calamity and the societal breakdown it'll almost certainly cause, Ben McPherson's Radioflash begins as a visually rich, calmly serious take on apocalypse drama.

Marc Lawrence's story about Santa's daughter, despite its solid cast, aims squarely at not-too-picky kids and mostly ignores parents' desire to be entertained as well.

Drowns in its own preciousness.

No film involving Nicholas Cage and a blowgun with curare-tipped darts can be all bad, and Primal gives us at least a little of everything we'd want in this kind of yarn.

It's a misfire by just about any measure, but it earns some warm feelings for its determination not to be like anything else currently in circulation.

Wes Tooke offers stiff dialogue and sometimes oddly structured action, leaving much dramatic potential unexploited. Yes, Emmerich stages plenty of aerial battles in which fighter pilots plunge through hailstorms of sizzling projectiles. But those hoping to get a thrill would be better served by revisiting his Earth-vs-aliens war flick Independence Day.

Sergio Pablos' Klaus invents its own unexpected and very enjoyable origin story for the big guy who gives out toys every Christmas eve. Shaking off most Yuletide cliches in favor of a from-scratch story about how even dubiously-motivated generosity can lead to joy, it contains echoes of other seasonal favorites (especially, in a topsy-turvy way, Dr. Seuss' Grinch) while standing completely on its own.

The story gets a bit more involving as it goes, though some elements that might've been memorable (a musical number from a dog played by Janelle Monáe, for instance) fall flat.

Susanne Wolff, who impressed critics last year in Wolfgang Fischer's "Styx," makes another strong turn here, grounding what could have become a merely lurid tale of dissipation, danger and sex work.

A pedestrian thriller whose personal-tech gimmick is even more thinly imagined than one might guess, it's a jumble of cheap jump scares made watchable by likable leads Elizabeth Lail and Jordan Calloway.

It suffers greatly from obeying the imperative the first sequel established: Trying to blow minds and up the ante the way that FX-pioneering adventure did, this one offers a series of action set pieces that go from big to huge to ludicrous, even as the script's additions to fear-the-future mythology underwhelm.

While he's not hinting around at the kind of systems of control he'll expand on to surreal effect in Dogtooth, The Lobster and elsewhere, Lanthimos enjoys provoking us visually.

Rounding up all the original's stars and throwing several more surviving human characters into the mix, the pic is plenty entertaining for those of us who, paradoxically, find zombies comforting in dark times.

Nearly everything misfires here — bizarrely so, since we can see where the laughs should come, how they would work, and how a more competent movie would get from A to Z. (To be fair, some jokes do land, just not as satisfyingly as you'd hope.)

A movie so bland and forgettable it hardly merits a groan from the Frankenstein-like butler called Lurch, The Addams Family strongly suggests that directors Greg Tiernan and Conrad Vernon deserve little credit for 2016's Sausage Party, the hit they directed for writers/producers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg.

Lacking the personalities and attitude that have led some other unassuming productions to commercial success, the film has little to boast about beyond some fine dance sequences — none of them more transporting than what can be found easily on small screens.

If they don't know going in, most viewers will be surprised in the credits to learn this is the voice of Brie Larson. Presumably, Larson wanted to lend her star power to a worthy promotion of scientific research; but in this case, the scientists were doing fine all by themselves.

Wisely, McFadden avoids nailing things down too tightly here, being content to show the shaky ground his characters stand on.

While it hardly sells Wrinkles as a culture-shaking phenomenon, this modest documentary will play best to those who enjoy being creeped out by him enough to suspend their disbelief.

It's also — for better and worse — never quite as grim as its grisly, sometimes gag-inducing action might suggest. Falling in between outright psychological combat and black comedy, Harpoon might flounder a bit without Gelman's ironic tone.